nanosecond
noun
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The nonserious use of nanosecond is probably much more common than the proper technical use. In measurement terms such as nanosecond, nanogram, and nanometer, nano- means "billionth;" in other kinds of words, its meaning isn't quite so precise. In computers, the speed of reading and writing to random access memory (RAM) is measured in nanoseconds. By comparison, the speed of reading or writing to a hard drive or a CD-ROM player, or for information to travel over the Internet, is measured in milliseconds (thousandths of a second), which are a million times longer than nanoseconds.
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Examples of nanosecond in a Sentence
Steven Aquino, Forbes, 30 Sep. 2024
These simulations were able to determine details like how quickly the energy of the X-rays was deposited into the sample (90 percent of the energy in just 14 nanoseconds) and the pressures generated by the rapidly expanding gas.
—John Timmer, Ars Technica, 24 Sep. 2024
The most precise and accurate atomic clock in the world, the ultracold strontium clock at JILA in Boulder, is like a stopwatch that can count the billionths of a nanosecond, or 18 digits past the decimal point.
—Allison Parshall, Scientific American, 11 Sep. 2024
Positions on Earth are calculated based on the transit times of satellite signals to ground receivers; a time measurement that is off by just one nanosecond produces a distance error of 30 centimeters.
—Becky Ferreira, WIRED, 4 Sep. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Nanosecond.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nanosecond. Accessed 27 Nov. 2024.
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nanosecond
noun
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nanosecond
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